National Survey of Student Engagement

In 1998, The Pew Charitable Trusts designed the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) to get a more accurate and meaningful picture of quality to communicate to the public. The NSSE project provides colleges and universities with valuable information about students’ views of their college experience by annually administering a specifically aimed survey.

The NSSE survey, designed by experts, asks students about their college experiences-how they spend their time, what they feel they have gained from their classes, their assessment of the quality of their interactions with faculty and friends, and other important indicators.

BYU has participated in these surveys for the last eleven years. By doing so, it has provided valuable insight to how the university compares on a national scale. During the 2012 administration, all graduating seniors were asked to participate in the survey. By surveying all eligible students, BYU Institutional Assessment and Analysis was able to create reports at the program level for many of the programs across campus.

In Winter Semester of 2012, the survey was sent out electronically to all graduating seniors, totaling to be 7,762 seniors. This report focuses on the senior responses. BYU received responses from 3,364 of the seniors, resulting in a response rate of 43% compared to 23% among BYU’s corresponding Carnegie Classification benchmark group of universities. Carnegie’s Classification for BYU is Research University because of BYU’s high research activity.

BYU’s Mathematics Department and BYU overall received high scores in many of the survey’s different categories.

The following are graphs which relate to various categories within the survey.